


The Meaning of Love

by bekindplsrewind



Series: Dancing in the Dark [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Michael teaching Adam Enochian, Michael's himbo is showing, they've been in a relationship this whole time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25016338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bekindplsrewind/pseuds/bekindplsrewind
Summary: Adam decides to finally confess his feelings to Michael in the language most dear to him--Enochian. Although, the aftermath isn't exactly what he'd quite expected.
Relationships: Michael/Adam Milligan
Series: Dancing in the Dark [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1832038
Comments: 24
Kudos: 112





	The Meaning of Love

**Author's Note:**

> i thought, 'i wonder how their confessions came about in the cage. who said "i love you" first?' for me, it was obvious that it was adam. or was it? D:
> 
> thank you [thewaywardgryffindor](https://thewaywardgryffindor.tumblr.com/) for the beta! :)

“How do you say ‘love’?”

Michael paused thoughtfully before speaking, “There is no word for that.”

Adam blinked as he tried to make sense of this. “But… but you love _God._ And your brothers.”

“Yes, I do. Though, the word we use doesn’t have the same meaning as _your_ ‘love’.”

“So, what do you say instead?”

 _“‘Hoath’_. It was initially used to describe us,” he gestured vaguely at himself, “how we express our love to our Father. But now it applies to anyone who shares the same devotion to Him. It means ‘worshipper’.”

“Oh,” Adam nodded, “I can see that. Yeah. But worship isn’t the same as love.”

“It is for us. We exist because of Him. There is no greater expression of love than worship. And to us, there is no one or thing above God worthy of that. That’s why _hoath—_ ‘love’—was reserved only for Him, before…” Michael stopped and looked away.

“Before what?” Adam shuffled a little closer. “What happened?”

Michael peered back at him, carefully. “God created humans.”

“And that changed the game, how…?”

Michael scoffed softly. “Our Father loves all His creations, humankind and angels. But when He told us to ‘love’ humanity, He didn’t mean it in the form of worship. We’d only ever expressed our love openly to Him, so we didn’t know what He meant by that.”

“Then how do you tell other angels that you love them? How does God tell you that he loves you?”

“We didn’t before. It was just a mutual feeling we all felt. And our Father never needed to; His love is inherent.”

“So you just… know. Without saying anything at all. Without him telling you?”

“Yes.”

Adam sighed. “Sounds really all one-sided.”

“He doesn’t need to because we know He does. If He didn’t, He wouldn’t have created us,” Michael said. “Like your mother, you know she loved you without you questioning it.”

“Yeah, but she also told me regularly. It’s good to hear it being said once in a while, you know? To know that it’s reciprocated.”

Michael made no comment to that.

“So… so how is ‘hoh-ah-tah-hoh’ used as ‘love’ now?”

“In many ways, much like how you use ‘love’. Before, we knew nothing beyond our familial bond. We had nothing to relate to other than the love of our Father and brothers. It wasn’t until humankind had formed their own languages that we could accurately differentiate them. For example, in Greek, we discovered _philia_ was what we share with our brothers—a non-romantic love between equals, family, friends. _Agape_ is the love that God has for man, a spiritual, charitable love, and that is what we learned what our love is for humanity.”

“And romantic love…?” Adam began slowly, not looking him in the eye.

_“Erotas.”_

“No, I’m not—I’m not asking about the Greek word. I’m wondering if ‘hoh-ah-tah-hoh’ can be used in a… in a romantic sense.”

Michael grew silent. “Hmm. Yes. Like all the others, when used in the right context, it can,” he finally said after a moment of deliberation.

Adam nodded as he said softly, “Okay.”

* * *

Adam felt the words roll over his tongue as he mouthed each syllable quietly. He’d repeated them slowly at first, making sure he was enunciating correctly before he was confident enough to speak at a conversational speed. Even now, he was afraid of saying the wrong thing.

“What would you like to do today?” Michael asked, watching him pace and mumble from across the small space.

“Um, m-maybe practise some more Enochian?” Adam shifted his eyes to and from Michael nervously.

Michael nodded. “All right.” He waited as Adam sat cross legged across from him. “Would you like to start or shall I?”

“I’ll start,” Adam said with a small inhalation. Adam collected his thoughts as he took another calming breath, feeling Michael’s eyes on him. _“Zir… zir zomdv hoath.”_ His gaze trailed back up to meet Michael’s who remained stoic as ever.

 _“‘Zir hoath_ IAD’,” Michael replied, correcting him. “Your sentence structure is correct, but it would be more accurate to say, ‘I am the worshipper _of God’,_ rather than, ‘I am _your_ worshipper’.”

“Michael, I’m not talking about _God_ here.”

“Then you would be implying you’re worshipping _me_.”

“That’s exactly what I’m implying.”

“No, you can’t. You cannot worship angels. Angels are not God.”

“Michael, I know—”

“I may be the Viceroy, but that does not make me God.”

“Michael—”

“Don’t be misguided into believing that these paintings and statues of angels make it acceptable to worship—”

“Michael!” Adam sighed sharply as he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “For an intelligent celestial being that’s existed for _billions_ of years, you’re not that smart.”

Michael’s brows furrowed ever so slightly. Out of surprise or disagreement, Adam wasn’t sure, but it looked like he’d unexpectedly been spritzed in the face like a misbehaving cat.

“Listen,” Adam sighed as he tried to start over, “maybe I should just say this in a language where we both get the message.” Adam breathed. “I love you.”

Michael said nothing.

He repeated the words softly: “Zir zomdv hoath, Micaloz.” Adam frowned when Michael remained unresponsive. “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have—just forget it.” He turned away, disappointed in himself. He didn’t know what he was thinking when he’d planned to tell him. What did he expect an archangel, the first of his kind, to do? Say it back? He felt so stupid.

“I can feel it,” Michael began; Adam glanced at him carefully. “Your love, I mean. I’ve felt it for a while.”

“You do…?” Suddenly, Adam was feeling warmer, and it had nothing to do with them being in hell.

It was Michael’s turn to look confused. “You don’t feel mine?”

Adam’s eyes widened and he blinked at him. “Yours…?” He tried to swallow even though his mouth felt dry. “Wait, are you telling me that… you love me, too…?”

“Of course I do.”

Adam’s mouth fell open. He stared at Michael for what felt like hours before he came to his senses. “And all this time you never thought to tell me?!”

“I thought it was a mutual awareness. I can see now that it clearly wasn’t.”

“No, it wasn’t!” Adam raked his hand over his face and shook his head in disbelief. He should have been happy with the news, but he couldn’t help but feel slightly betrayed. Michael _knew_ and had remained silent about it. What made it worse was that Michael appeared to have loved him for quite some time now—but for how long? And Adam had been in the dark.

Michael sighed. “You’re quiet.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking.”

“That’s not always a good thing. For you, at least.”

Adam scowled at him. “You should’ve told me!” He huffed a sigh. “Okay, maybe words aren’t your best quality, but you should’ve given me a sign at least?”

“I did.”

Adam looked dubious. “I don’t recall receiving any love letters, _Mike.”_

Michael rolled his eyes. “When I feel your love, I ‘push back’.”

“Yeah, not following your angel logic here.”

Michael sighed with an air of frustration. “Here, close your eyes.”

Fixing him with a sharp look, Adam eventually complied. “Are we meditating suddenly? Or—” He stopped abruptly when a warmth slowly flooded over him and he was cocooned in the feeling of love and safety. He’d felt this before—a lot of times, in fact, after he’d look at Michael longingly when he thought he wasn’t paying attention. Or after Michael told him a story of when everything was still Paradise. Or just… whenever. It pulsed, almost in synchronicity with his heartbeat. He slowly blinked open his eyes. “I always thought that was just me. That was… you?” His voice was filled with awe and he stared at Michael with just as much wonder.

“Telling someone you love them isn’t so much a common practise as it is to ‘show’ them. I guess this is more of an ‘angel thing’ than a human one.”

“No, it is except, maybe it’s more with flowers or-or cooking someone dinner, or taking out the trash. A hug. The whole empathic sharing wouldn’t work so much unless you were, you know, an empath.”

“Hmm.” Michael considered these things over like he was taking notes. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Adam shook his head and smiled bashfully, his gaze averting downward, “I… I like it. It feels like a hug. It makes me feel all good and warm and-and… safe.” Adam raised his eyes to him. “You make me feel safe.”

“And you make me feel seen.” Michael smiled at him softly, a smile Adam had seen hundreds of times before, but hadn’t realised it was one of affection until now. Adam felt like an idiot for missing that. How could he have been so blind!

He could feel his cheeks burning. “But you’re the Prince of the Heavenly Host. God’s ‘favourite son’. You practically ran the joint since forever. How are you not seen?” Adam teased.

“Angels respond to me because of rank, duty, and fear. But you don’t fear me. I’d even say, you enjoy my company. You’re very much an anomaly like that.”

“Well, not at first. I thought you were a _huge_ dick in the beginning.” Adam cracked a grin. “And I do like spending time with you,” he said, his tone growing more serious, “but above all, you’re my friend, Michael. I see you.”

“And I’ll keep you safe.”

They stared at each other as the warmth of Michael’s love radiated throughout Adam’s entire being.

Adam started to laugh. “Have we been in a relationship this whole time without me realising it?”

**Author's Note:**

> THEY'RE BOTH IDIOTS, OKAY??
> 
> but the real question here is... who _really_ said it first, hmmmmm?
> 
> enochian pronunciation for the curious [or nerds]:  
> zir -- zod [or 'zode', rhymes with 'road']-ee-reh  
> zomdv -- zod-oh-em-deh-voh  
> hoath -- hoh-ah-tah-hoh  
> iad -- ee-ah-deh  
> micaloz -- mee-kah-loh-zod [can you guess what this means? ;)]
> 
> there wasn't a precise order of how the words are structured, but given the enochian transcribed in 'the enochian calls', i'd say it's similar to english? so that's what i went for. the language is pretty limited in vocabulary, but for good reason. i'd say there's more words that aren't recorded, so we can just make them up in fic :).
> 
> thank you for reading! all kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!
> 
> this is sorta... part of my midam series...? like a prequel...? [maybe i'll start a separate one with their times in the cage D:]
> 
> come bother me at my tumblr! [seagullmichael](https://seagullmichael.tumblr.com/)


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